The present invention relates to a cassette tape recorder of the type in which the tape in the cassette loaded in the tape is driven by the winding reel in the cassette so as to be wound up onto the winding reel for the reproducing or the quick winding operation while the tape is driven by the rewinding or supply reel in the cassette so as to be rewound onto the rewinding reel for the quick rewinding operation.
Heretofore, a prior art tape recorder has been provided with a mechanism for effecting the reversing of the operation of the motor for effecting the winding or the rewinding operation of the tape thereby rendering the construction to be complicated and the size of the tape recorder to be large while a plurality of operating knobs for effecting switching of the tape recorder for various modes of operation thereof thereby rendering the manipulation of the tape recorder to be complicated and very troublesome leading to an improper or false function of the tape recorder.
In a prior art cassette tape recorder such as a dictating machine, for example, which is adapted to be used by a supervisory person who has to give various orders or instructions to his followers by recording the instructions in the tape recorder, it is necessary for the supervisory person to record his instructions quickly in time while he is doing other jobs parallelly with the recording operation. Thus, it is highly desirable that the tape recorder is small in size and handy to carry, while the manipulation of the tape recorder is made easy and simple without causing any false functions which might be caused by hurried manipulation of the tape recorder. However, the prior art tape recorder of the type described above is relatively troublesome in manipulation because of the provision of a plurality of various manually operable knobs, thereby causing improper or false functions to occur so that the recording operation of the same content must be repeated in order to obtain the required instructions thereby wasting time and labor.
In a prior art cassette tape recorder of the type in which a switchable power transmitting device is provided and a fly wheel serving as a switching member is arranged in the power transmitting device which member is driven by a driving motor, the fly wheel is in general formed with a driving shaft and a driving gear integral therewith, the driving shaft being selectively engaged with a frictionally driven wheel integral with the winding reel mounting shaft when the switchable power transmitting device is switched to the reproducing position of the tape recorder so as to feed the tape for the reproducing operation, while, when the switchable power transmitting device is switched to the quick rewinding position, the driving gear integral with the fly wheel is brought to mesh with a driven gear operably coupled with the supply or rewinding reel mounting shaft and adapted to feed the tape in the reverse direction for the quick rewinding operation thereby effecting the quick rewinding operation.
In such a tape recorder, however, substantial noise is generated when the tape recorder is switched to the rewinding position due to the meshing engagement of the gears thereby deteriorating the smooth operation of the tape recorder, and, further, the gears might be damaged or the tape is broken when the feeding of the tape reaches the terminal position, because the great inertia of the rotating fly wheel is given to the meshing gears as an impact force.
Further, a large stroke of movement of the axis of the driving gear is required in order to insure its positive engagement with and disengagement from the driven gear thereby making it difficult to arrange the mechanism in a small space required to a handy cassette tape recorder suitable for a dictating machine described above.
It has also been proposed to utilize frictional wheels in place of the above described driving and driven gears. In such an arrangement, however, an idler friction wheel which must be held apart from either of a driving friction wheel and a driven friction wheel during the inoperative position of the tape recorder will have to engage with both the driving and the driven friction wheels in the most adequate angular relationship to each other as the driving friction wheel integral with the rotating fly wheel is moved for the rewinding operation. The construction and the relative arrangement of the parts for achieving the above function is, however, very complicated and difficult so as to be incorporated in a compact type tape recorder. Further, in a power transmitting device utilizing such friction wheels, the torque transmitted through the device tends to widely vary depending upon the variation in the ambient temperature, humidity and the like because the physical conditions such as hardness and the surface condition of rubber tires uded in the friction wheels vary as the ambient conditions vary.
The present invention aims at avoiding the above described disadvantages of the prior art tape recorder.